Monday, August 23, 2010

When I moved overseas I decided I would take myself off the Electoral Roll. My reason for doing so was that I am useless at remembering to vote when I'm in the country, let alone 200,000 miles away and the last thing I want is a $2000 fine when I get back.

I forgot to vote once, or maybe twice, then when I tried to get my License they told me I couldn't until I paid off my non-voting fines which was just a ballache, I don't even remember not voting, let alone paying some fucking douchey fine for not voting.

So when I moved really far away from Neutral Bay Primary School (my voting palace) I thought, fuck that shit! I'm not wasting thousands in fines, when I could waste thousands on expensive steaks and overpriced wines.

Anyway, suffice it to say, I didn't vote in this last election. But if I was there i'll tell you who I wouldn't be voting for:

Scary Poltergeist Man:aka: Tony Abbot in about 15 years.seriously. this man just creeps me out.Don't come knockin on my door asking for my foetus babies!! that's no way to get votes you fool! His parents really should have opted for some surgery for him as a youngster to pin those ears back. It might make him slightly less unfortunate looking.

I don't vote for scary cult leaders who lead people into an underground vault and then starve them to death because the end is nigh. Which is exactly what he will do. Mark my words.

God is in his holy temple. Earthly Thoughts be silent now.If you voted for the poltergeist guy don't come crying to me when your furniture is trying to kill you, little kimmy's been sucked into the demonic vaccum cleaner, and the tree is eating your dog. That's just what you get when you vote Liberal.

I didn't vote and my furniture is just fine. I missed out on the voting day sausage sizzle and 50c book fair, but at least I can answer the phone without worrying that my long lost dead grandmother is on the other end trying to steal my soul.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Last night I saw Little J from Gossip Girl play her debut London performance at the O2 Islington with her band "The Pretty Reckless".

O.M.G.

First up though, the support band: they were called something really gay like "Francesca" which really didn't go with the type of band they were at all, they were a group of hot 19 year olds. They should have called their band "testosterone" or "STD" because seriously, they would have fucked anything that moved within the audience.

So the support band played for 30 mins. Then we waited.... and waited... and waited some more. We figured we were waiting because they were going to unveil some amazing stage set-up, but no turns out we were just waiting for the sake of waiting.

Then OMG The Pretty Reckless come on stage.

The first thing I noticed about the band, was that all the members looked like people I knew. First up the bass player looked exactly like my friend Graham. Graham thinks he's trentreznor. Graham has had the same goatie beard style on his chin for 15 years. Graham wears leather man bracelets and tight black t-shirts that show off his chubby man pecs. Graham is living the dream inside his own head. The bass player was Grahams twin. I was jumping up and down screaming "graham! graham!" if there was any band that Graham is likely to show up in, it's this - a band where a girl wears crotch showing panties.

The lead guitarist.. looks exactly like my mum's boyfriend Rich. Like Exactly. I'm thinking to myself "how the fuck did Rich and Graham end up in a band together??" So to paint the scene for you: The band is made up of 45 year olds, 45 year old BonJovi roadies and trentreznor wannabes. But that is not the point. The point is we came here to see Little J.

And then she comes out.. in all her panda eyes, lingerie, flap showing, hair extensions and leather jacket wearing glory.(note Graham in the background)

The Pretty Reckless played their entire catalogue.. which sums up to about 6 songs. They were the headlining act and they played for 25 minutes. During that time Taylor shook her extensions all over the stage and wore a guitar around her neck like an ornament and crotch thrusted into the eyeballs of everyone in the front row. But hey, that is what we can came here for.

The thing is.. Taylor Momsencan sing. She can sing for a rock band at any rate. She has great stage presence, it is really unfortunate that she is in a band with a bunch of wet towels. Old Wet Towels. It's just a bit not right having a 17 year old dressed as a hooker with a bunch of old men prancing around on stage and rubbing her underage boobs all over Graham the Bass Players old flabby arms.

Not that Taylor's whore look is anything new - She rocks the look, she just needs to be in a band where she doesn't look so out of place. She needs to go back in time and be in The Runaways. People will say that Taylor is trying her hardest to be Courtney Love, but honestly Cherie Currie did that look first and Cherie Currie did it better, because at least Cherie was in The Runaways with a kickass all girl rock band behind her. If Taylors 17 year old raunch is too much for you just remember that Cherie was only 15 when she graced the stage in sexy lingerie back in the 70's..

Overall, I would say that seeing the Pretty Reckless lived up to all my expectations of being a rubbish trainwreck. They are worth seeing just to hear Taylor pumping up the crowd "this song is for everyone who has woken up with a hangover!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Thursday, August 19, 2010

It has to be said. My faaaaaaaaaavourite food in the whole world is Burritos. At my next wedding i'll be serving Burritos and Margaritas. I routinely stalk the Portobello Road burrito man, who comes and goes and changes location each week, I have been moved to ask perfect strangers carrying white napkins around if they were just eating a burrito and if they could point me in the direction of Burrito Man.

Unfortunately Burrito Man is like a mist you can't quite get hold of. Which is why I am thankful for the existence of Chilangos.

Last year during our Holiday we went to Chilangos, and my life changed at that moment. Welcome to the world of the instant Burrito!!!!!!! It's like a subway for Burritos. Beans/chicken/beef/guacamole/salsa... the bomb.

Then when we decided to move to London 6 weeks later I was easily swayed "that just makes me 200,000,000 miles closer to Chilangos!"

Then on my first morning in London after a grueling 23 hour flight. I hadn't even showered and was running on zombie instincts, I somehow, found my way to the tube, got out at Angel station and went to Chilango's at like 10 in the morning.

I haven't eaten a burrito for breakfast before or since then, but it's the one thing that makes me laugh when I think about my first day when I moved here. I don't even know how I remembered where Chilangos was? or how I navigated my way through the tube and even found an Oyster card??

At any rate, I still love Chilangos and any reason to go to Angel requires a mandatory burrito. Tonight we are going to see 'The Pretty Reckless' in Angel and I don't know what part I am most excited about - seeing Little J on stage in her pantless panda eyes stripper shoes, pretending to be Blair Waldorf swooping in and ruining Little J's big moment... or if I am most excited about a reason to get a chicken and black bean burrito. I have a feeling it is the latter.

Lenny doesn't get passionate about too many things, well besides; food, armpits, blankets, eating paper and clean underpants.You can't leave a clean pile of laundry out for 5 minutes before he has made himself a nice sleeping nook.

You can't take a blanket from a cat (no you can't)No you can't take a blanket from a cat (he'll take it back)If you try to take that blanket, from a cat he just won't take it.No you can't take a blanket from a cat (that's a fact)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

It's always interesting when you see a mogul fall from grace because of an illicit love affair - recently being the David Jones scandal. Personally if I was ever going to bring down an empire I would be targetting Peter Jones from Dragons Den:First of all, he isn't that unfortunate looking like most millionaires. He had the sense to have his teeth capped for one, even though it would be like staring into a face of gravestones late at night - I could let this pass for the giant payout I would receive at the other end.

How to bring down The Dragon though??

I would have to get onto the show, and when asked what my business proposition is, I just crotch thrust in Peter's direction and ask if he wants to invest in this..I would also have a rare breed of spanish pig in the room with me to distract the other Dragons whilst I procure my Dragon with the thrust of seduction.

The Society for Travelling and Understanding Parallel Interstellar Dimensions

1.

If I was going to blame anyone for my mother Menaka’s (celestial damsel) disappearance, I’d have at least two culprits, my grandmother Keshini (the one with beautiful hair) and her obsession with interdemensional portals, and my father ‘Gajendra’ (the elephant king)and his quest to record the most obscure sounding album the likes of this world has never heard.

But in order to get to our story, I must first tell you how it all begins.

The White Dwarf. There lives in my village a man known by many names – Janardan (the one who helps people), The White Dwarf, or ‘Jan’ amongst his followers. When one is told to go and find The White Dwarf, they would have a hard time looking around the sea of faces surrounding them – for Jan is neither white nor a dwarf. He is rather a foreboding man of grand stature, standing 6’4 with a long white beard and skin the colour of a golden sunrise.

The White Dwarf was once a great scholar, a scientist who studied the heavens and stars, who spent more time indoors with his magnificent telescope staring up the sky than he did with fellow peers and the general public. The White Dwarf was a shrewd man, ever observant of his surroundings, noticing every hair, every dust mote, keeping track of every star in the celestial body he was mapping, and never letting go of any material possession in his house.

Then one day he started noticing that things would go missing around the lab and his house, at first it was just the teaspoons, which was annoying unto itself, as no ganja tea tastes quite right being stirred with a fork. After the teaspoons started to disappear he noticed many other things that would go missing, his blue jumper, countless socks, and watches. Yet no matter how hard he looked for these treasured items – he could never find them. It was around this time that Janardan began research on his most controversial study to date – the search for space cracks in the boundaries between alternate universes and ways to infiltrate these dimensions.

Janardan believed that our world coexists with parallel universes, and cracks can appear in the universe, which would allow one to pass through and find themself in a parallel dimension.

Janardan was convinced that this is where all the spoons were going. That his laboratory was a hotspot for space cracks, and that tiny teaspoon shaped cracks were passing through his kitchen absorbing his cutlery into another universe.

Janardan felt that if it was possible for space-cracks to allow objects to pass through the barrier, than perhaps if a human found the right shape to fit into the space-crack then he too could infiltrate this new world.

For many hours Janardan would sit/stand/crouch/flex into different positions, holding it for hours on end trying to squeeze through space, believing that if he just held the position that eventually a crack in that particular shape would pass by and he would be through the portal and find himself in a magical new universe.

Janardan would try all sorts of places to pose in his mission to find space-cracks. In parks, on top of trees, on peoples balconies, underneath parked cars, crouched into a ball huddled under his desk for hours on end. It was not unusual in those early days of Janardans quest to find him perched somewhere around the city in a strange pose for days.

Janardan was a very charismatic man, and his many friends and fellow scholars would learn of his quest and begin to see that his outlandish theory could possibly hold true, as they also had many items go missing, some even had relatives and pets disappear and could find solace in Janardans teaching that if we persevered with our poses to squeeze through the space cracks we would eventually be reunited with our loved once and treasured possessions in another universe.

Janardan gathered quite a following, and it would seem to the unsuspecting passer-by that they were merely intense yoga fanatics, so the two societies of crackers (as they called themselves) and the general public (blockheads – named so as they were too blocky to pass though a space crack should it present itself) co-existed in harmony for many years.

Over time Janardan became known as the White Dwarf, namely because of his impressive white beard, and the fact that he one day announced to his followers that that is what they should refer to him as from now on.

And so the Society of Travelling and Understanding Interstellar Dimensions was formed. A group unto themselves who lived peacefully and healthily, rich in communal sharing and group support.A STUPID Group with open minds and open hearts.

STUPID moves around the landscape in all cities these days, small sects popping up everyday in another town – with members posing on skyscrapers, on top of pyramids, crawling into mine spaces,or casually posing in parks on their lunchbreaks in the middle of the workday. Many members posing as yoga teachers in the general public running classes in gyms and parks around the world aiming to raise awareness to the possibilities of opening young minds to a new way of thinking. Mostly though, they help tightly wound young professionals in their stretching, allowing an hour of peace to an overworked and stressed out work obsessed civilisation.

My Grandmother Keshini was a great student of STUPID, able to flex into the most impossible positions and earning much praise from the White Dwarf. She eventually moved out of home to follow the White Dwarf to the Great Land where he felt the highest rate of space cracks would be found in the open desert, upon a glorious mountain range, and canyons so deep one could peer for hours and never see the bottom.The White Dwarf felt that only away from cities and their toxic cement structures which were ‘too blocky’ to pass through a portal would the group have the best chance to move into the new world.

The society evolved onto living off the land, roaming the countryside in elephant huts, teepees and hammocks, the white dwarf living in a pyramid made from tin cans and plastic bottles, the only solid monument to be found on this magical plane.

Keshini had a daughter, who she named Menaka, who was by far the most flexible and beautiful creature anyone living in the area had ever seen. Menaka excelled in her STUPID studies and became a creature of awe amongst the men in the group. The White Dwarf felt that if anyone had a chance of cracking through to another dimension it was Keshini, and much hope and adoration was bestowed upon her.

The White Dwarf had an obsession with plastic bottles and tin cans, which he had witnessed in the Old Land the regular collection and hoarding of said items by what he called ‘government blockheads’ (who would never pass through a space-crack).

The Old Land habit of recycling these items, putting them out in large bins for collection in giant trucks just did not sit right with Janardan, and he began to think that perhaps this recycling gimmick was just a way for the government to absorb more funds and precious materials off the townspeople, and so he began collecting plastic bottles and tin cans and storing them around his house, thinking they would be valuable in the New World, and proudly displayed his collection to the followers in his clan, whom also adopted the behaviour of collection and display in their own homes.

When my mother Keshini met my father Gajendra, he had a collection of plastic bottles the likes of which she had never seen, a pile so high and mighty that her young heart was smitten with desire for the young collector, and so they began their love affair of plastic and tin can collection, while working earnestly on albums for the society to listen to called STUPID Music.

My father could play any instrument in existence, and my mothers lessons from the White Dwarf had taught her the value of everyday items, and so they produced many many albums of STUPID Music – the sounds of blankets, the sounds of lamps, the sounds of an elephants tail, and up until my mothers disappearance they were working on their most controversial recording to date – the sounds of space-cracks.

2.

Once a year my family would trek into the city to visit my Ajji and Ajja, they are my fathers parents and live in the middle of the city surrounded by what feels like millions of people.

My Ajja used to be a world famous concert pianist and hangs a photo of himself playing at the Emperors birthday celebrations in the hallway so it is the first thing you see when you enter his house.My father inherited my Ajja’s talent for music and found he could play any instrument in existance like he’d been playing it his whole life. Unfortunately my father wanted to go into Pop Music which completely infuriated my Ajja who considers anything not a piano requiem to be merely noise pollution.

My father became quite famous with his music and it was while he was on tour that he met my mother and they fell in love. My Ajji and Ajja don’t under the STUPID way we live, and are forever calling my father a hobo who lives in a toilet shack on an elephants back.

When we make our trips into the city my father is very careful that we contain our STUPIDness around his parents, we must clean and put away all our plastic bottles and tin cans,our elephant gets an extra special wash, and we try to make our house look less shack-like.

Manouvering through the city on an elephants back is some feat, and my father is very adept at steering her. He sit’s up the front on his little seat, whispering things into her ears and we make a series of seemingly random left and right turns before we arrive at Ajja’s house, my mother tells me my father speaks fluent elephant so that’s handy.

“Gajendra! Park that elephant round the back will you? I don’t want any giant elephant poos on my lexus!” Ajja and Ajji meet us at the front door and it is a very exciting moment when everyone hugs and sees each other for the first time in many months.

They tell me how much I have grown, my father that he needs to upgrade his shack, my mother that she is more beautiful everytime they see her, and Keshini brings down a big bowl of marigolds we have picked from the land as a present for Ajji.

We will usually stay a week, we stay in our house which seems to perplex Ajja on a daily basis

“why are you sleeping in that doghouse when we have perfectly good bedrooms for you in our house Gajendra?”

“father, it is not so bad as you think, you should come inside, Keshini has made a very special tea and you could see the painting that little Rishi has been doing”

“what is he painting it on? a grain of rice?? I don’t think anyone else is fitting inside that thing, I’ll just wait out here thanks”

Each morning when we come outside for our STUPID exercises Ajja peers out at us from his kitchen window expecting to see us creeping inside his house to make food and clean ourselves, he has no idea that we have no need to do that as our house has 3 bathrooms and a generous kitchen, he’s just never been inside so he wouldn’t know.

Ajja and Ajji have never understood being STUPID, father tells me that its because his dad has a massive blockage from his upbringing, that he needs to have a more open mind – if he did, then he would see our wonderful warm home for what it was, rather than some flea infested shack – which Ajja makes no secret that given the chance he would burn down our beloved house to rid us of that “decrepit old diseased hutt..”

Keshini likes to keep up with her STUPID exercises and will do ‘the crab’ for hours in Ajja’s garden, and in many other places around their house in the hopes of finding a space crack in the most unlikeliest of places.. When we came to visit my Ajji’s when I was a little boy, you would hear screams and smashing noises when someone had opened a door and found Keshini inside in one of her complex poses. These days they are used to it, and wouldn’t even blink an eyelid if they found her inside their flowerpot in her ‘dead tree’ stance for hours on end.

Ajja loves my mother, and he is her biggest fan when it comes to music. For a man who peers down his nose at anything not operatic he has found a definite soulmate in my mother and the two can sit for hours on end making up new songs while he plays piano and my mother turns the microwave on and dances around the room all night.

On this particular visit my Ajja and Mother had been coming up with a score for the latest album my parents planned on releasing “the sounds of space cracks” my father will sit in on these sessions playing tabla, piano, sitar, Ajja arranges the composition, Mother readys the microphone, and they compose that way for hours.

Depsite all our differences, we have a tremendously wonderful time on our vists, even our elephant is treated to a daily showeringand cleaning session from Ajji, who mainly does it out of her obsessive compulsive cleaning disorder, but our elephant doen’t complain, except when Ajji gets into one of her scrubbing trances and will buff the skin away on our elephant butt until she is raw. That’s when you know showertime is over, when Ajji comes inside sopping wet from our elephant dumping the water bucket all over to get her to stop cleaning.

Aside from the compositions that Ajja contributes for the sale of STUPID music, (something he would never admit too), we have a festive time with lots of spicy dinners, singing, dancing, and appreciating each others company for the small amount of time we spend together.

One of Ajja’s neighbours - Tushar has been STUPID for almost as long as my Ajja can remember, my father and Tushar used be friends andto do dual-poses for hours in the backyard when they were growing up, a form of dual-STUPIDity, where one can entangle themselves in the most curious of poses, however injury is rife when you try to achieve these levels of STUPIDity and most people give up after having their partner stand on their nutsack, or have a toe in the eyeball for hours on end. Noone has ever achieved a dual space crack before, so the practise is left only to the most extreme of us.

We always visit Tushar when we are there, because he always has something exciting to show us. Tushar favours himself as quite the entrepreneur, and is always very keen to show my father his latest scheme.

This time he proudly brought out his latest venture – STUPID water.

“what’s so STUPID about it?”

“well, you can pour it on yourself, that would help with your STUPIDness, or you could drink it to internalise your STUPIDness”

Tushar has been selling STUPID water under the proviso that it actually helps with space cracking. He belives that by pouring the water on yourself before going into your poses you will be more slippery and be able to slip through a crack more easily, or drinking it might help with becoming more focused when you are about to embark on a STUPID session.

My father couldn’t believe he was actually selling the stuff to people

“well there’s a lot of STUPID people out there…”

On the morning we left I hugged my Ajji and Ajja goodbye, Keshini was nowhere to be found until someone spotted her hanging off their aerial on the roof, my parents bid them a fond farewell and we set off on our elephant, as always Ajja lets us know if we ever want to stop living this disappointing bohemian lifestyle that there is a warm bed waiting for us in their house.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

When you are searching for spacial seaside holiday cottages and the information listed says PETS ALLOWED, does your mind not turn to a variety of pets??

dogs.. cats... rabbits... birds..

I mean, if they're saying Pet's Allowed they really should mean that, but what they actually mean is: Dogs allowed.

It's so racist.

Lenny does not approve.What is so great about dogs?? what damage is a cat going to do that a dog won't?? I assure you the extent of Lenny's Legacy in the Holiday House would be a patch of fur in the carpet from where he has sat in front of the fireplace for seven straight days.

Best not to let Lenman know about the Haters. He will rip the place to shreds to prove a point. With DOGS SUCK spelled out in nuggets in his litter..

I am just going to have to do the only thing left for me to do, and that is shave lenny, put a diaper on him and carry him around like a newborn baby in one of those chest slings.

I'm gonna organise a parade, and every animal who has ever been denied a room on vacation should come, to all the birds who were denied places on the QE2 (too Piratey) and the rabbits who were denied rooms on the farm (too watership downey junior) and the snakes denied vegas hot tub suites (too snakey - are you filming a 1990's music video??)

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Rules: Take one of the bajillion canned food tins and shake it up and try to guess what is inside. Whoever wins - gets to eat it (or not)Don't ask me why we have a warehouse of canned goods painted white - my guess is that we did an ad for the Ku Klux Klan.

So far we have found Spam, Sardines, Marmalade, Tuna, Corn, Mushroom Soup.. so we can all live in the studio forever if there is a zombie apocalypse and repopulate the earth.

This weekend, the Gang caught the train to Liverpool. Two hours later and we were in the city of The Beatles! I don't know why they don't just rename it: Beatlespool, because that is about the only reason people have to go there.

Liverpool is................ skanky. BUT it has a rich cultural history which makes it cool. It's like this: Bombed Out Church, Bum Fights, Boarded Up Shop, Burned Out Building, Banksy, Uber Expensive Restaurant and Bar, Historical Grade 1 Building, somewhere John Lennon/Paul McCartney did something.

It's like..... sooooooooooooooo random.

First thing on the Liverpool Tour is a trip to the Beatles Museum, which doesn't really tell you anything you didn't already know, and I know this because my dad watches 2 things on constant rotation: Beatles Anthologies, and Holocaust Documentaries. I could have given the tour.

Then a bit of wandering around nice buildings, which turn out aren't so nice (more on this later) and then accidentally stumbling across the first ever Gay Pride Parade.What?? Haven't you ever seen a gay dog and a man dressed up in rainbow boots and furry yellow manboobs??? Well, these Liverpoolians sure hadn't.. and look i'm not being a looksist person, but Liverpool isn't full of the most good looking bunch of people, it's not like Sydney's Mardi Gras, where every tranny that walks past has better legs than any woman in the vaccinity. Liverpool is a rough man's city, I dont think they even advertised their first Pride Festival, given that a very burly man walked past us with his dog and into the festival going "that's fookin gay".

The evening was spent going to the Cavern Club where the Beatles did their thing before they were famous.. but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. We arrived at the street and saw the CAVERN sign, and down we went.. oh what? this is the Cavern PUB.. not the Cavern Club?? right.

So the Cavern PUB is like this: imagine a place where Dad's go to hang with other Dads, Dads on Guitar, Dads on Drums, Dads on the dancefloor with their Dad Beers dancing Dad-Like to Dad Songs. It's Dad Town, and coincidentally so not the place we wanted to be.

Up to earth again and we found the Cavern CLUB. this is more like it.This is the place to visit. Every famous band and singer has played here. It's awesome.

Now here are some things you might not know about Liverpool: did you know that it was one of the main hubs for Slave Ships during the Transatlantic Slave Trade?? yeah. Not cool. There were no Beatles songs about that. Boo You Slave Masters and your fancy buildings that you built from the pain of forced labour and selling slaves to plantation farmers.

They also built a lot of ships that sunk: including The Titanic.

So, Liverpool. Great if you like Music, Not so great if you are a time travelling slave from the 1700's.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Ever since realising I've been getting raped by the chemists back home for my pill prescription considering it is FREEEEEEEEEE in this marvelous country - I thought I'd give some more tips for anyone moving over here - stuff that I wish I had known.

Don't waste your money on prescriptions before you leave... they are either free or cost max £7

Remember the good old days when you could walk down a street without being squished from all sides?? yeahhhhh, that's never gonna happen again. Every night going through London is like New Years Eve.. there are sooooooooooooo many people. all the time. 8pm on a Wednesday night you can't walk anywhere without touching at least 1500 strangers. Don't even get me started about weekends. You will have to find shortcuts around the place unless you want to take 5 hours getting somewhere because you will be walking the pace of a snail behind 30,000 other people.

Tourists suck. I have done all the annoying things that tourists do to me on a daily basis - standing on the wrong side of the escalator (they kill you for that over here) not moving down the platform, gathering in large groups and blocking exits. OMG. I hate you so much. However I like being able to escape all this and travel an hour into some European country where the locals scowl at me whilst I squint at tube maps and block exits over there 'FungoolooooMamma Mia!!'

Remember how in your old place it was nice and quiet with the sounds of birds chirping and the wind and ocean breezes?? well London is exactly like that except rather than 'quiet' it is 'always humming' and rather than birds, it's ambulances and pimped up cars with hip hop. Oh yeah, and your neighbours downstairs who plays the drums and his opera singer girlfriend, and the neighbours upstairs who build things with power drills at 10pm. There will also be a reggae band and ArethaFranklin singing on your street and a drum and bass house that never sleeps. Sleeping is for pussies.

You will have no time to just chillax. Pretty much every week is filled with a billion things - seeing a band, seeing a play, going on a road trip, flying to Spain. You will wonder why you brought over that box of DVD's because you probably won't watch a DVD the entire time you are here. You actually look forward to a weekend where you have absolutely nothing to do.

British people make fun of the way Australians talk, and Australians make fun of the way British people talk. this is a running gag that never gets old.. except it gets real old. real quick.

Having to renew your passport becomes the most stressful thing in your life because you have to stop booking trips away for 8 weeks until it comes back.

All your shoes from back home are USELESS against the winter. You will seriously need igloo boots. a thick rubber sole and filled with fur. I like my toes. I want to keep them attached to my body. In your face frostbite!!!!!

It really doesn't rain here as much as they would like you to believe. Unless I moved here during England's first Drought.. wouldn't surprise me.

Whinging is like Breathing over here.

As soon as you are earning pounds you will stop converting money into Australian dollars "wow!!! rubber soled furry boots for £200!!!! that seems reasonable".... (probably should have kept converting on that one..)

If you like oily noodle soup or cherry ripes, pack these instead of your DVD's.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

So, it goes without saying that the stupid NHS is just annoying and stupid...(or so I thought)

I had to go to the doctors five times to get my pill prescription.I had to register, then I had to have a nurse do a check up, then I had to go back to get a prescription from a nurse, then I had to go back to collect the prescription (but they close early on Thursdays...) so I had to go back again. All in All... not impressed with the lack of speediness in this country.

But I do see the perks of having just one doctor and having all your medical records in one place. My medical records are sprawled out allllll over sydney, I would go to doctors wherever I needed to - specially if I happened to find a bulk billing place. It was good because you could get as many prescriptions from all over the city and they are none the wiser because your information isn't being held in one establishment. But I can see how that is a dangerous thing.

In London you have one doctor, and that's it. If you want to change doctors you have to re-register and the ball-ache of it would just not be worth it (unless you moved to the other side of the city)

So anyway, I finally get my pill prescription and go to the Boots and they hand over my 6 months worth with a £0.00 owing sticker on the front.. i'm like "?? this can't be right" so I go back up to the counter and ask if there has been a mistake because all these drugs can't possibly be free.

Yep. They are free.

The Pill is freakin FREE in this country!!!!!!

You know what I did before I left home.. went to about 2 doctors and got 9 months prescription so I wouldn't run out. cost me about $200. what a fucking numpty.

I just can't get over the fact that something that used to cost me about $30 a month is now free. It's so liberating.. but rightly so, considering that I pay at least £100 a month in NI.

I wonder what else is free?? It would be my dream to have free psychotherapy so I could go into a nice therapy room and dance around for an hour singing weird songs going "is this normal??"